Getting Lessons for the First time

After 10 years of playing tennis, I am finally getting lessons for the first time. I was wondering what kind of things I should look for in terms of determining if the instructor is good or not? We are getting semi-private lessons. (it's only 2 ppl only)

The coach will usually give you verbal instruction. If those are easy to understand and works for an extended period of time (instead of seeming to work first time you try it) then that's a pretty good coach. If they say like open up! open up! every time you hit the ball and you have no clue if you are to open up your racquet face or your shoulders and you have no clue how to go about doing it that's a bad coach.

After 10 years of playing tennis, I am finally getting lessons for the first time. I was wondering what kind of things I should look for in terms of determining if the instructor is good or not? We are getting semi-private lessons. (it's only 2 ppl only)

thanks for the help!

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If you have been playing ten years:

1. I would set goals for yourself and with your coach. Like improving your eating habits, mixing in workouts, improving your rating, getting to your desired weight, etc..

2. Work on the apects of your game that are causing you to make errors, execute poor shot selection strategies, better short ball recognition drills, improving your stamina, etc...

3. He should be able to locate technical issues with your stroke like correct swing paths, swinging through the ball, keeping your head still through contact, etc...

Don't be surprised that he suggests to change a few things that might have become poor habit over the years. Also, when you do change something don't expect miracles. One usually goes down with the change before they get better.

After 10 years of playing tennis, I am finally getting lessons for the first time. I was wondering what kind of things I should look for in terms of determining if the instructor is good or not? We are getting semi-private lessons. (it's only 2 ppl only)

thanks for the help!

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First off ignore BB.

Second refrences are everything, he may be a great teacher with all kinds of accomplishments, but that does not mean anything if you don't get along or don't like his style of teaching.

We have two top pros here, one is a great guy amazing human but his teachings and drills are just simply behind the times

Then we have another that was 3 in nation from college play and is a welth of knowledge experince and results great drills ect but has a very sour personality simular to BB

Don't comit until you are sure, make sure you full understand the back ground of the references as different levels and types of people need different things

thanks for everyone's the advice! It helps alot. Seems like the conversions between BB and jackson ville has the intensity of a Johnny Mac/ Jimbo match. I've been playing 10 yrs but I am not that serious as to adjust my triple whopper meal. j/k. =) I wanted to find out from the instructor how to modernize my ground strokes (i.e. Hitting double bend's, resolving the dispute between bending or not bending knees during serves (sorry BB and Jackson) LOL, and improving my footwork.)

I wanted to see how to spot a bad instructor from a good one. Just hope I don't get one with telling an hour of stories and 15 mins of technique... thx again

I would make sure you know what you wish to accomplish from the lessons and what you wish to accomplish from tennis in general.

What I would look for is a TP who before getting you on court, asks you a bunch of questions; how often you play, do you workout in other ways, do you like tourney play, how long have you been playing, singles or dubs or both , do you play other sports, how many lessons you will be taking (you can almost always get a reduced rate for taking a package of lessons), etc. The TP should process this info and structure the lessons for both of you based upon this info...you dont want to leave the court feeling as though you just got the same lesson he/she gives to everyone.
It would be good if the other person taking the lessons is around the same level as you.
After 10 years of playng you are gonna have some ingrained bad habits, some of which may be slow to change...you and the TP should decide how much you wish to reinvent the wheel and if you wish to take the time and energy to totally rebuild strokes or to get the most of what you already bring to the table.
Also, a nice thing to do since you are taking lessons with another person, is to book a court for immediately after the lesson, and to start ingraining what you've learned at the lesson

I wanted to see how to spot a bad instructor from a good one. Just hope I don't get one with telling an hour of stories and 15 mins of technique... thx again

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Then the only way you will be able to tell that is either by going to a few lessons with him or trying to find out what others are saying.

A good and a bad coach can be very relative to a players goals and aspirations.

As I indicated above, you have to know your own goals and what you want out of a coach so you can determine whether both of you are on the same page.

I also very much agree with NBM that a good coach will tailor his intruction to best improve you. He will ask you questions and get a sense on where you want to go, where your trouble areas are, what you do well and what you do not so well. This all falls into goals setting and making sure that your practices and you both are on the same page working together.